A Three Year Old's Sense of Time

I was taking Elliot to the bathroom.  He apparently had other things on his busy schedule and didn't want any part of it.

"Just sit for a little while," I told him, encouragingly.

"I don't need to poop, Dad," he said emphatically.

"No?"

"No, Dad," he said.  "I pooped last year!"

Now, Elliot is correct in his statement, although whether or not he remembers the particular event is debatable.  Even more debatable is whether or not he has any concept of how long a year is or, when last year actually was.

As I look at his three year old sense of time, I think about how much different my sense of time is from his.  Yet, even though I know when next week is and when last week was, I am far removed from God's perception of time.

I think of this, in particular, concerning God fulfilling his promises.  "But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.  The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."  (II Peter 3:8,9)

If God promises us something, He will fulfill it -- in His perfect time and way.  It is just that I usually don't perceive time the way He does.

There are time that I wish God would hurry up a little, but I never need to worry.  For, whether it is last year, this year, or next year, God will be right where He always is -- right on time.

Vaccines

"Oh, one thing more," the elderly lady sitting across from me said.

Now, I must confess that I have learned to dread the "one more thing" questions that seem to come at the end of office visits.  The questions may be short, but so often they are anything but easy to answer.

"What's that?"  I asked.

"Could I get a tetanus shot today?"  Mildred asked.

I relaxed a little.  "Sure," I said, wondering a little.  There aren't many 89 year old women who are particularly concerned about keeping their tetanus shot up to date.

Mildred, it seemed, could read my mind.  "You are wondering why I am concerned about getting my tetanus shot.  Well, young man, I will tell you.  My aunt died of tetanus.  It was long before they had the vaccine and there was nothing to do but watch her die.  It was terrible way to die."

I have never seen a case of tetanus, never had a patient die from lock jaw.  I have only read about it in pathology textbooks and so, for me, it isn't real.  For Mildred, it was.

These days, there is a lot of fear of vaccines.  Anecdotes abound of the terrible things that vaccines have caused.  Some of these things are real, some just happenstance, but I am afraid that the biggest issue is that vaccines are too successful.  People are no longer afraid of the diseases that the vaccines are designed to prevent.

When the polio vaccines were first created by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, people did not question their safety.  Everyone knew a child who walked with a limp or, a teenager who had died in an iron lung from it.  Polio was far scarier than the vaccine that prevented it.

Even now, if you set up a clinic in West Africa and offered to vaccinate people with a completely untested vaccine against Ebola Virus, you would have a line a mile long at your door.  It isn't because people want a shot, it is because they are desperately afraid of a deadly illness without a cure.

The internet is an awfully effective magnifier of fear and anxiety.  Yet, I am afraid that all too often it creates fear in the wrong things.

The diseases of yesterday can and will return, without the effective vaccines of today.

Small Miracles

There is a need within this world,

  Let it be said, for God, for His presence,
For His greatness and smallness, touching here
  And filling all things with His triune essence;
For a simple sense of something greater,
  Able to work mighty deeds of wonder
And reach down through the wind and rain
  To spark the lightning and peal the thunder.

Small Miracles.

Ordinary, every day, run-of-the-mill miracles
  Things we see in nature every day,
Created with an awe-inspiring beauty
  To fulfill a divine plan and way.
Yet, these little things are easily explained
  By equations of physics and mathematics
And in a burst of logic faith is lost,
  Thrown into the domain of mere fanatics.

The deepest needs remain unfilled.
  Science finds more questions for every answer
And for every treated acute bronchitis,
  It seems to find an uncured cancer.
Science's miracles have limits here --
  Limits set by the human mind,
Which cannot fathom the smallest things
  Which divine fingers once designed.

So, even in this world of science,
  There is still a desperate need
For someone to touch within hurt lives
  To heal the scars, to staunch each bleed…
A need for something more that cannot,
  Will not be fit into the small space
That science still allows for God –
  There is still a need for God, in this place.

Joel Osteen

Joel Osteen is really popular right now -- with just about everyone (except a few folks on facebook).  I suppose it isn't surprising.  He is relentlessly upbeat.  He doesn't talk about negative things a whole lot.  He is someone who does his best to offend no one and please the masses.  He is a politician as well as a pastor.

I'm not a theologian, but it seems that Joel Osteen is in favor of people living with abundance, being happy, and doing good.  He doesn't like to talk about sin, because he prefers to dwell on the positive things.

He believes that God wants us to be happy and who could be upset with someone who is in favor of general happiness?

The problem with the whole situation is that he has forgotten how to speak truth.  Pastors have a responsibility to speak truth, even when it is painful.

When I see my patients, I always attempt to identify good things in their lives.  If they have lost a couple of pounds, if their cholesterol is two points better, I commend them.

I think it is just as important for me to share their problem areas with them.  If all of my patients walk away happy and satisfied with themselves, believing they are paragons of health, they may like me, but I have been a failure.

In the same way, pastors have a responsibility to identify the moral decay in the world around us and in their congregations and expose it.

Somehow, in a world that desires happiness and abundance, they must bring a suffering Savior front and center.

The message of the cross is clear.  Christ came and died for sinners, of whom I am chief.  Jesus came to bring joy within the storm.  He came to give us the strength to suffer.  He came so that we could walk in pain and rise above it.

This world needs a real Savior who speaks to us in our sorrow, not a glib pastor who wall papers over it with feel-good statements of happiness.

There is power in the cross.  There is power in truth.  For those will choose them.